Sex should be pleasurable, and there should be no doubt in the mind of both partners that sex is what is desired.
Unfortunately, that is not always the case, and that is what can lead to acquaintance rape.
According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, “college-age women are four times more likely to be sexually assaulted.”
Depending on the state, sexual assault can mean “unwanted sexual contact that stops short of rape or attempted rape,” or it can include rape, according to RAINN.
Acquaintance rape “involves coercive sexual activities that occur against a person's will by means of force, violence, duress, or fear of bodily injury” with someone a victim knows, the website stated.
According to the website of the National Center for Victims of Crime, acquaintance rape is more common than rape by stranger, though women report rape by stranger more often.
Melissa Lucchesi, the outreach education coordinator for Security on Campus, Inc., said in an e-mail that about 90 percent of rapes in college are caused by people victims know, partly because acquaintances have more access to victims.
“Rape is an opportunistic crime of violence, power and control,” Lucchesi said. “The victim's guard may be lowered when around someone she knows or is even dating. Also, the people we know know what makes us more vulnerable.”
More college women are raped because they feel safer on campus and there are more opportunities and vulnerabilities, as well as an alcohol and party environment, she said.
Harmful effects of sexual assault and acquaintance rape (besides the act itself) include depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, alcohol and drug abuse and suicide contemplation, according to the RAINN website.
Melissa Tumas, a sexual assault and relationship violence specialist at the Sexual Assault and Relationship Violence Information Service (SARIS) at the University of Washington, said her university is trying to reduce violence by “engaging all the people who are bystanders” through the Green Dot Program.
“Most people in our culture are not violent,” Tumas said. “It’s only a very small percentage of people who actually commit violence, but it’s the rest of us who are sort of either silent or passive bystanders who, in many ways, allow these things to continue to happen.”
She said talking to people about how to reduce their risk or avoiding rape or telling people not to rape others hasn’t been effective.
“What a green dot is, is any word, action, choice [and] phrase that shows that you don’t tolerate violence, that takes action against it, that supports survivors and that just sort of creates a culture of safety,” Tumas said, whereas a red dot is an act of violence or a victim-blaming statement.
The hope is to overcome the red dots with green dots, she said.
Examples of “green dots” can be to leave a party with friends you came with, make a plan for that situation and finding the friends of a drunk woman you see being pulled upstairs.
In certain situations, you have to be creative, especially to avoid escalating violence. For example, if you think a drink has been drugged, spill it “on accident.”
Besides reacting in situations, women can be proactive by writing a paper on acquaintance rape or sexual assault, attending awareness events, encouraging programs at their universities (like Green Dot) and speaking up when someone makes a victim-blaming statement.
She said that it is never a victim’s fault, and it’s never guaranteed that a woman can avoid sexual assault.
“The act of sexual violence is taking someone’s control away from them,” Tumas said.
People like feeling that they’re in control of their own body, she said, so sometimes people will blame rape victims because of wanting to avoid vulnerability. Also, it’s hard for people to believe that others can commit those types of crimes.
For example, blaming a victim for wearing revealing clothing “reduces the issue to something very simple versus looking at the complexity of power and control,” but that’s how some people make sense of the situation.
However, it is beneficial to take some prevention steps, like knowing your sexual desires and limits and communicating them, traveling in groups and being careful when drinking.
When one or both partners are drinking alcohol, it is better to wait to have sex in order to make sure there is consent, she said.
“Most people would say the best sexual experience of their life was not when they were super drunk and hammered,” Tumas said.
One aspect of rape to consider is the difference between regret and not feeling like you have a choice, she said.
Coercion is manipulating a person to have sex involuntarily, and it is up to the victim to decide if she was being forced and didn’t consent. A gun doesn’t have to be pointed to the head, or the rapist doesn’t have to be physically aggressive for it to be considered rape – coercion is more of an emotional manipulation.
For example, if a woman tells a man she doesn’t want to have sex and he keeps bugging her and won’t leave her alone, and then she “gives in” under the pressure, that can be considered coercion.
Lucchesi said coercion is when “you say or imply no and the person continues.”
“No one should ever compromise their boundaries, and it should always default back to the person with higher boundaries,” Lucchesi said. “Who wants to force someone to do something she doesn't want? A rapist.”
Sources:
http://rainn.org/statistics
http://rainn.org/get-information/types-of-sexual-assault/sexual-assault
http://www.ncvc.org/ncvc/main.aspx?dbName=DocumentViewer&DocumentID=32306